SINGAPORE – The benefits that virtualization bring are numerous, but – even if everyone is talking about moving towards virtualization – not everyone is able to do so because of the lack of knowledge. This is according to Neil Holmquist, senior director for product marketing and management (cloud/IP) for Spirent Communications, speaking with Upgrade Magazine at NetEvent’s 2015 APAC Press & Service Provider VIP Summit.
For Neil Holmquist, senior director for product marketing and management (cloud/IP) for Spirent Communications, moving to a virtualized platform brings new agility, but agility must be accompanied by predictability.
“Everyone is talking about the move. But not everyone knows how. In fact, everyone seems to first wait for others to do it first,” Holmquist said.
For Holmquist, the promises brought by virtualization are numerous, including: agility, flexibility, self-provisioning, elastic scaling, global network visibility, and optimized traffic steering.
However, there remain numerous industry concerns in the deployment of the new network. These concerns include: maturity, operation concerns (“Things are changing, but there’s not enough education,” Holmquist said), performance, scalability, reliability, security, and profitability.
There are various turn key solutions, including: accelerating deployments of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV); scaling up of infrastructure, performance and reliability; and realizing more, and continuous testing and developments.
Spirent Communications is one company helping provide solutions to ensure performance, reliability and predictability for virtualized network functions before and after deployment. For instance, the company’s SDN and NFV test solutions let vendors and operators build a next-generation network.
For Holmquist, moving to a virtualized platform brings new agility, but agility must be accompanied by predictability.
Yet another solution is to further the education.
“The mindset has to change,” Holmquist said.
Already, the company offers e-books, white papers, and webinars on the topics “to let people know what they have to be aware of the move to virtualization,” Holmquist said. “(We need to) highlight the problems before they happen so something can be done about them.”
“The investment in cloud deployment and development continues to grow,” said Holmquist, estimating the growth for Spirent Communications alone to be “a 20 million to 30 million dollar opportunity for us, if we do things right.”
The Asia-Pacific region comprises 40% of the market for Spirent Communications, which has offices in Bengalore, India; Singapore; Beijing, China; and in Hong Kong SAR.
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